History and Political Science - the US - Research Paper Example

The small states are overrepresented in the House of Representatives while those that are big tend to be underrepresented (Frederick, 2009)

The proposed amendment to the constitution would improve the representation of the American people in the House of Representatives in a very big way. The Equal Protection clause in the U.S constitution requires that the House of Representatives apportionment scheme be based on population to ensure that the right of every citizen to equal representation and to have their votes weighted equally with those of all other citizens is enforced. (Anzalone, 2002) Limiting the maximum number of citizens a representative can represent can highly increase the effectiveness of equal and active representation. The individual citizen’s ability to exercise an effective voice in the only instrument of state government that exemplifies direct representation (Anzalone, 2002) The founding fathers of the United States of America intended that the population of each congressional district should not exceed 50,000 to uphold the spirit of equal representation.

Today, the average population of a congressional district in the USA is 700,000 people which is a very big number compared to the initial intended figure. The increase of congressional representation with the increase in population would ensure that the congressional districts would be equal across the nation as opposed to the situation today where some congressional districts have almost double the population of others to uphold the spirit of equality in representation. Smaller districts would enhance the representation of the constituents in law-making and voting of bills.

It would also enhance monitoring and management of the constituents by their representatives. The legislators end up being less active on conditions that lead to individuals relying on cognitive shortcuts of the complexity of the congressional district. Thus the amendment to expand the number of representatives should be passed to reduce the size of each congressional (Miler, 2010). The enactment of this amendment would also make campaigning easier and less expensive since campaigning in a 50,000 people district is easier than campaigning in a 700,000 people district.

The enormous districts are also enabling re-election of representatives even if they are underperformers and disadvantaging the minority groups in the current system. The enactment of this limit would ensure that the diversity of the American people is well represented in the House of Representatives. This would also have a positive implication in the reflection offered by the college vote that elects the president and the vice president. Most of the legislators and their staff are committed to representing their constituents but representing several thousand people is not easy.

Due to the large population, they are representing, they may fail to perfectly represent their constituents not because they are corrupt or privilege some constituents but because of the workload that they have (Miler, 2010). Increasing the number of representatives would thus allow full representation without favours in the constituents. On the other hand, if the law is amended so that each representative can represent not more than 50,000 constituents, the number of representatives would increase enormously.

This would increase the estimate to a staggering 6000 representatives. There was of course valid reasons why congress limited the number of representatives to 435 in an amendment in 1911. 

There were fears that with the growth of the American population, the size of the House would increase greatly. The proponents of the limit generally feared increased taxes which would be an unnecessary burden to the taxpayers (Naske, 2009)

 An increase in the size of the House of Representatives to such a big figure would mean an increased budget of the House due to increased wages and allowances. This would all be at the expense of the taxpayers somehow raising the cost of living; therefore, with increasing economic hardships and unemployment in the United States, this would not be a popular idea. Such an increase in government expenditure is viewed as unnecessary especially because some critics say that an increase in representation would only reduce the productivity of the members of the House. 

An increase of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives decreases the importance of heuristics, and this would not mean it would fully eliminate their use because it will only reduce their workload of serving about 625,000 to 50,000 constituents if the constitution would amend this law. The sheer number of representatives would also slow down the process of legislation due to an increase in the variety of ideas and propositions. This would also alter party unity in the House that would bring about difficulties in Party control in the senate and thus less local grounded politics.